


maybe i could make a little more sense

by Donchushka



Category: Volleyball RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Humor, Inability to Communicate Like Proper Adults, M/M, Office Supplies, Troll Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 17:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13323438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donchushka/pseuds/Donchushka
Summary: When his boss hires a new Communications Manager for their department, Tom is quick to realize that he shouldn't be allowed to speak to any human being, preferably ever.





	maybe i could make a little more sense

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if there's a point in putting this as an AU, since only a handful people knows these characters in their original setting, but what the hay. They are volleyball players who have no relation to volleyball in this particular story, so it's an AU.
> 
> The title comes from "All I Want" by Walk The Moon.
> 
> Enjoy!

If anything, Tom thinks that it’s a good thing that he can name the exact moment when his life went to shambles. After all, not many people can do that.

It all happens on one gray December Monday, which was originally supposed to be marked only by another one of those fantastically boring intradepartmental meetings, which Annette seems to love so much, followed by a mountain of paperwork, which Annette seems to love even more. Tom patiently sits through the apologies for absence, plays footsie with Rosemarie from Financial Management during the minutes of the last meeting and beats her at tic-tac-toe three times in a row during the arising matters, and perks up only when Matthias from Strategic Programming says that there is no further business to discuss. When Annette finishes announcing that date and time of the next meeting, her phone rings.

“What is it, Pieter?” she all but barks into the receiver, already annoyed beyond belief just in case, but whatever Pieter says raises her spirits. “Oh, great, send him in. I’m afraid I’ll have to keep you for another moment, people,” she states, putting the phone down, and everyone who’s already got up from their chairs falls back with a groan. “Yeah, yeah, poor you. I’ve finally found someone to replace Cleopatra in Communications, so I want everyone to be on their best behavior and show this guy that we’re a respectable company, not a cage full of chimps.” Annette gives some people a pointed look, including Tom, but he just rolls his eyes when she looks the other way. “He’s going to start tomorrow, but since he’s come today, let’s just get all formalities out of the way.”

Tom prepares to pity the guy, who was smart enough to make it through all seventeen stages of the application process and in the end still chose to work here, but forgets all about it once he sees him walk through the door.

“Everybody, this is Sam, our new Corporate Communications Manager.”

Annette talks some more, describes why she thinks Sam is perfect for the job, not so subtly reminds everyone to be nice and friendly, but Tom stops listening five seconds into her speech, is very glad that he’s already sitting down after thirty, and forgets to blink about a minute in. When Sam starts saying something about looking forward to working with them, Tom has to remind himself that it’s still not socially acceptable to slowly melt to the floor.

Thus, Tom’s life goes steadily downhill.

***

“I’m in love,” Tom announces during lunch break, flopping on the chair next to Lowie from Social Protection. He doesn’t even flinch and just sighs.

“How many times do I have to tell you that you stand no chance with the guy from that laundry detergent ad? God, I really thought we were over this.”

“No, not Sven,” Tom waves his fork impatiently and ignores Lowie’s _that’s still the stupidest name you could’ve come up with_. “There’s a new guy in our department and he’s so…” Tom trails, trying to think of a word that would describe Sam best. Lowie takes this pause to stop listening and start eating. “...amazing.”

“Lame,” Lowie comments through his chicken curry.

“What’s lame?” Gert from Social Finance sits at their table and eyes them with interest.

“All this mental effort, and he still can describe his dream guy only as _amazing_ ,” Lowie clarifies, not letting Tom say a word.

“The dream guy? Dude, I‘ve already told you, this Sven guy is, like, impenetrably straight and has three kids or something, so…”

“This isn’t about Sven,” Tom rolls his eyes and throws a piece of carrot at very smug-looking Lowie. “Annette hired a new guy for Communications, and he’s just very…”

“See? He’s stuck again,” Lowie observes cheerfully once Tom fails to produce an adequate adjective once again. While Tom tries to kick him under the table as indiscreetly as possible, Gert opens his food container and starts chewing thoughtfully.

“Just talk to him, then,” he offers a couple of moments later. Tom abandons his attempts to physically hurt Lowie and looks at him like he’s just proposed to travel the world on skateboards.

“Are you crazy? I can’t do that.”

“Okay.” Gert scoops another thoughtful forkful of rice. “Then don’t talk to him.”

“But I want to,” Tom looks mournfully at his vegetables. Gert gets a napkin out of the pile on the table, unfolds it, and shrugs.

“Then just combine the two.”

Tom casts him an incredulous look. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“You know, talk to him without _actually_ talking to him,” Gert explains. “Like, I don’t know…”

“Wink at him,” Lowie suggests.

“Exactly! Or wiggle your eyebrows.”

“Or poke him and when he asks why you did it, just smile.”

“Or trip him and pretend it was an accident, but like, do it every day.”

“Or lay out messages for him in his office in toothpicks, the weirder the better.”

“Or…”

“You guys are assholes,” Tom informs them, and they still have the indecency to grin and high five each other. “Why do I still tell you anything?”

“Because we are a pleasure to have around,” Lowie salutes him with a can of cola. “Seriously, talk to the guy, see what he’s about. If you’re disappointed, you will always have Sven, and I already know how to make fun of you for that.”

“But…”

“Listen,” Gert interrupts him, “the worst that could happen is that guy turns out to be a douche and you go back to having wet dreams about some actor from a random commercial. And as much as I hate hearing about these,” Gert shudders, as if recalling a particularly colorful story, “it’s still better than watching you make goo-goo eyes at your coworker for months to come. I’m still recovering from that time you decided to have a crush on Lowie.”

“I didn’t have a crush on Lowie!” Tom protests, but Lowie raises his eyebrows at him and he just sighs. “Okay, fine, I’ll try talking to him.”

“Attaboy,” Gert says patronizingly and returns to his rice. “Anyway, so we’re having this super important meeting, right, and…”

As Tom listens to Gert rant about changes in their gross salaries, he thinks about his options once again. Talking to Sam really doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world. After all, it cannot possibly go irreparably wrong.

***

Tom storms into Lowie’s office two hours later, torn between wanting to throw the biggest fit in the history of the company and wishing to crawl in a hole and die a slow and painful death.

“I’ve ruined everything!” he exclaims, once the door behind him closes with a bang. “And I have come here to blame you for that!”

Lowie looks up from his papers and eyes Tom’s accusing finger with curiosity.

“Well, admitting a problem is always the first step to fixing it, but I fail to see how I fit in with your problems.”

“You were the one who told me to go talk to Sam and said that, I quote, _nothing bad will ever come out of it, ever!_ ”

“First of all, I don’t recall saying that. Second of all, I take this as proof that you did go talk to him.” Lowie pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers and sighs. “Now, how on earth did you manage to fuck this up?”

“He was standing next to the printer,” Tom says miserably. Lowie waits for several seconds and, when the rest of the story doesn’t come, coughs semi-politely.

“And?..” he prompts.

“I introduced myself to him, asked how he was finding the place so far, he said that it’s very nice and that he’s wanted to work in a place like this for a very long time. Everything was going great and then,” Tom shudders from the memory of horrific events that took place not even five minutes ago, “and then I noticed that he was printing something.”

“And you verbally abused him for not thinking of our fragile environment?”

Tom looks around for something to throw at him, briefly contemplates his shoe, but in the end decides against it.

“I wish, you dimwit. I said to him, “Gotta love these printers, huh?” and he said, “Yeah, they’re pretty useful.” And I should’ve shut up right there, right?”

“Yeah, you should’ve.”

“That was a rhetorical question.” Lowie raises his hands and pretends to zip his mouth shut. “Anyway, instead I went on about the wonderful invention that the printer truly is, and I think he still was finding it kinda funny, but then I said, “And look at all those sexy papers sliding out,” and he just gave me this _look_ , said, “Okay,” gathered his documents, and left.” Tom falls on the chair and drops his head on Lowie’s desk. “Do you have any words of encouragement for me?”

“No.” Lowie sounds like he’s trying to stifle his laughter, so Tom flips him off without lifting his head. “That was very rude, Tomas. Now, what about this _look_ he gave you?”

“You know, the _look_ ,” Tom gestures vaguely, still refusing to get up. “The _you-are-weird-someone-please-help-me_ look. The _why-are-people-like-this-still-allowed-in-public-places_ look. The _should-we-not-start-shooting-them-on-sight_ look.”

“Okay, I think you may be exaggerating just a little bit.”

“How do you know, you weren’t there,” Tom mutters into the table.

“With such wonderful storytelling, I feel like I very much was,” Lowie finally lets out something akin to a laugh and Tom sits up to glare at him. Lowie just waves him off. “I’m sorry, but from my point of view this is hilarious. It’s a pity that Gert has another meeting, he’s missing all the fun.”

Tom decides not to ask Lowie to keep this a secret. Gert might just as well be already laughing at him.

“What should I do?” He thinks that he’ll regret asking that, but right now it feels like the situation cannot possibly become worse.

“I don’t know. Stop speaking altogether?” Lowie shrugs and looks at his watch. “Get out of my office and go mop somewhere else, that’s for sure. I have an appointment in five minutes, and I feel like I’ve already spent a socially approved amount of time listening to your woes.”

“Fine,” Tom grumbles and stands up. “I’ll go and make myself happy. You just watch.”

“Actually, I’d rather not.” Tom flips him off one more time and opens the door to leave. “Don’t do anything stupid while I can’t see!”

Tom goes back to his floor, fighting a cowardly desire to look around every corner with a mirror first. The look on Sam’s face definitely suggested that he should try his luck somewhere else, and Tom grimaces, calling himself an idiot for what must be a hundredth time. At least, the worst is already over.

***

It is not over.

Lowie arches a questioning eyebrow when Tom appears in his office again on Tuesday morning with a horrified expression on his face. Gert is also in his office, looking more interested than worried, which, Tom thinks grimly, is just his luck.

“It happened again!”

Lowie raises his eyes to the ceiling as if asking the higher powers for help and guidance, and Gert attempts to cross himself but doesn’t really succeed.

“What now?”

“I talked to Sam again!”

“Oh no,” Lowie groans and shakes his head. “We explicitly told you not to do that.”

“I believe I also suggested sticking to a strictly written form of communication, like sending letters with carrier pigeons,” Gert adds, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”

Tom decides that listing obvious reasons for the dismissal of this particular idea would be a waste of time, so he just sends him what he thinks is a death glare.

“He asked me for directions! It’s his first proper day here, was I supposed to just allow him to get lost in this giant maze of a building?”

“Yes,” Lowie says, his gaze serious.

“Absolutely,” Gert agrees.

“You should’ve done just that.”

“Only that and nothing else.”

“You should’ve pretended you’re deaf.”

“And blind.”

“And have asked _him_ for directions.”

“That would’ve thrown him off his game.”

Tom shakes his head, lost in the amount of conditionals thrown at him.

“Anyway. It turns out that his office is right next to mine, so we took the elevator together, and I managed to keep silent for the whole time.”

“We’re proud of you,” Gert solemnly clutches his chest.

“I had to go to his office anyway, Annette asked me to pick up some application forms or whatever, and while he was searching for them, I was having a look around.”

“Bad idea. But I’m not interrupting anymore,” Gert catches another one of hopefully-death glares and covers his mouth with his hands, like one of the wise monkeys.

“So I noticed a pencil sharpener on his desk and, because I, apparently, hate my existence with a fiery passion, I said…”

Lowie groans. “Oh Lord, please tell me you said, “Thank you very much for these important files, my dear colleague, I’ll see you around”.”

“Then he wouldn’t have said that he hates his existence with a fiery passion,” Gert supplies helpfully. Lowie nods, as if he really found this remark enlightening, and it’s Tom’s turn to ask the higher powers for assistance. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to tell the next part without it.

“No, I said, “Did you know that the first pencil sharpener was invented in 1847 by a Frenchman named Thierry Des Estivaux?””

Lowie bangs his head on the table, softly but with feeling. Gert doesn’t do anything of the sort, even though he looks like he kinda wants to as well.

“How do you even know that?” Lowie’s muffled voice comes from where he’s still lying on the table. “Most people don’t just go around spewing that kind of information!”

“I like reading Wikipedia articles, okay?” Once he establishes that neither Lowie, nor Gert are going to say anything supportive or helpful and will simply continue sitting in silence like Tiki statues, Tom throws his hands up in the air. “What am I going to do? If I was straight, none of this would’ve happened!”

Lowie lifts his head up from the table and grimly looks at him. “Trust me, the amount of people that wish you were straight - in a non-homophobic way - would surprise you. It’d make our lives so much easier.”

“Even Gert?”

“Especially Gert,” Lowie clarifies. Gert himself just shrugs apologetically under Tom’s accusatory glance.

“Sorry, dude. I just really could do without graphic descriptions of what you would do to Jake Gyllenhaal if given the chance, you know?”

Tom tries to bore a hole in him for several more seconds for good measure, then drops on the chair at Lowie’s desk. “Let’s just pretend that I didn’t care about the untimely betrayal of my two best friends and was able to calmly return to the issue at hand.”

“Done,” Lowie nods at the same time as Gert says, “Not a problem for me.” Tom suppresses a sign.

“What do I do? He just gave me a strange look, said that he had no idea, gave me the papers, and I got out from there as fast as it was considered socially appropriate.” Tom gets up from the chair and starts pacing around the room. “Should I go apologize? Or send him a basket of muffins? But what if he’s allergic to gluten? Oh my god, I just killed him!”

“This is exactly the reason why you consult us before making any major decisions,” Gert says soothingly. “What you’re going to do right now is return to your office,” Tom nods, because so far that seems plausible, “do your work, sit on your ass for the whole day and not talk to anyone about pencil sharpeners or anything even remotely related to them. Do you think you can do that?”

“I think that’s the soundest advice you have ever given,” Tom says, honestly surprised by Gert’s sudden eloquence.

“What can I do, someone here has got to have some common sense,” Gert shrugs and points at Lowie, who looks like he’s holding in at least five sarcastic comments out of sheer politeness. Tom rolls his eyes, gives Gert a thumbs up, and heads for the door.

“If you do something dumb, we’ll disown you!” Lowie shouts once Tom is in the corridor. The incident with a sharpener is still fresh in his mind and will undoubtedly haunt him until his dying day, but Tom finds things looking up when he reaches his office. The only way from the bottom is up, as they say, and the situation can’t possibly get worse from here.

***

It gets much worse.

This time Tom doesn’t even need to get to Lowie’s office, because he collides with him and Gert in the middle of the corridor to cafeteria.

“And where are you going, young Tomas, on such fine Wednesday afternoon?” Lowie starts but quickly cuts himself off, taking in Tom’s disheveled appearance. “Oh no, I know this look. Please tell me it’s not what I’m thinking.”

“I think that’s exactly what you’re thinking, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking,” Gert gives Tom a once-over and shakes his head disapprovingly. “What did we tell you about not talking to people?”

“But he is so beautiful,” Tom whines, looking somewhere in between them. They exchange a meaningful look.

“Oh no, we got to the B-word,” Lowie sighs, and Gert tuts. “That’s never good.”

“We had another meeting, and he made his first official presentation,” Tom starts, not paying any attention to sighing and tutting, which are gradually increasing in volume. “Something about corporate communications in the modern day and age, I don’t know, and he was just standing there in this white shirt, talking about all these methods and numbers, and… Did I ever tell you that he has the best voice?”

“No, you didn’t,” Gert supplies helpfully.

“He has the best voice,” Tom continues and gazes dreamily into the distance, ignoring Lowie’s hiss of “don’t fucking _encourage_ him!”. “And Annette also really liked him and said something about us being a bunch of baboons and how we should all learn from him, which is, like, the highest form of praise you can get from her, and then…” Tom remembers what happened next and shudders in horror. Lowie looks at him and raises his eyebrow, unimpressed.

“And then? I didn’t listen to your serenade about his virtues only for you to shut up before the most interesting part.”

Tom looks around in hopes that something will come and save him from telling the rest of the story. However, all meteors and earthquakes have apparently decided to happen on another less convenient day.

“I was cleaning the whiteboard, because everyone else is a giant wuss and is afraid of manual labor, and he came back because he’s forgotten something, so I panicked and dropped the sponge.”

“We should’ve told him to stay away from sponges,” Lowie whispers theatrically to Gert. Tom pinches the bridge of his nose and opens his eyes just in time to see Gert nodding solemnly.

“He looked at me, smiled, and asked, “So what it’ll be today?”. And you know what I said? Paperclips.”

Lowie and Gert stare at him, eyes wide open and expectant.

“Excuse me?” Lowie says a couple of seconds later.

“I said, “paperclips”,” Tom repeats, noticing that it doesn’t make him feel better to say it twice. “I said that very loudly and clearly, and then I ran away.”

“You really should stop talking to him about office supplies,” Gert observes. Tom would’ve called him out for staying so calm in a dire situation like this, but on the other hand he has Lowie already dying of laughter, so Gert is actually the lesser of two evils.

“But that’s the only thing we have in common,” Tom says miserably, which causes Lowie to start wheezing.

“You do realize that,” he gasps, “that you literally work in the same department?”

Tom dumbly blinks at the wall, and Lowie only laughs harder.

“I’ll take that as that you didn’t realize that,” Gert supplies, tactful as always, and this time Tom does send him a glare. Gert raises his hands in a defensive gesture. “Hey, just saying.”

“I don’t think there’s even a point in me asking you for advice anymore,” Tom grumbles. Lowie picks himself up from the floor, still hiccuping a little, and shakes his finger at him.

“Don’t blame us. I, for one, am willing to take everything I said about Sven back. You have my blessing. This guy is perfect for you based solely on the fact that you can’t possibly fuck this relationship up.”

“And I will no longer say he’s impenetrably straight,” Gert adds. “I’m still not willing to retract the statement about the three kids, but you’ll deal with that.”

The hard truth about Sven was that since meeting Sam Tom hasn’t given him another thought, even though his sensual whispers about the quality of a laundry detergent used to keep him up into the wee hours of the morning. When he tells that to Lowie and Gert, the shocked expression on Lowie’s face almost makes him laugh.

“How can you say that, considering all you’ve been through!” he exclaims. “Think about the lack of danger of accidentally mentioning office supplies! Sven looks like he’s only into washing machines.”

“And I bet he’s got a really nice specimen, too,” Gert says, his expression just as comically worried as Lowie’s. Tom throws his hands up in the air.

“That’s all well and good, but how is that supposed to help me not want to ask Sam out?”

“You want to ask me out?”

To Tom’s horror, Sam stands near the elevator not five meters away from them and eyes him with curiosity.

“Well, we’ll be off,” Lowie announces loudly and drags Gert with him in the opposite direction. Tom barely notices, too busy trying to evaporate from the face of the Earth.

Sam takes a couple of steps, so there’s still distance between them but Tom can see mirth crinkling in his eyes, and leans forward, as if letting him in on a secret. “You know, I’d be more than okay with that.”

Tom gapes. “You would?” he manages in a hoarse voice.

“Of course,” Sam smiles. “Have you seen yourself? It would be very stupid of me to pass up an opportunity like that.”

Tom feels blush creeping down from his ears to his neck. Damn it, and he just played it cool by not melting to the floor after Sam smiled.

“I, um… er, I… uh...” Sam just looks at him, patient and confident, and Tom’s throat closes in panic. “I swear I can say more than that,” he blurts out.

“Are you going to tell me more about pencil sharpeners?” Sam asks, laughter twinkling in his eyes. Tom blushes harder.

“No, I’m all out on that,” he says honestly.

“Thank god,” there’s a hint of relief in Sam’s smile, and Tom feels the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. “We’ll think of something else. Just stop by my door after you finish, I know a terrific bar nearby. That works for you?”

Tom can only nod. “Yeah.”

“Then it’s a date,” Sam smiles again and steps back to press the elevator button. Once the elevator comes with a _ping_ , he winks at Tom and is gone just like that, leaving him to stare at the empty space with his mouth open.

When he’s sure that the elevator’s gone, he turns around to see the heads of Lowie and Gert sticking out from behind the nearest corner.

“Did I just see that?” he whispers.

“Did _I_ just see that?” Lowie repeats incredulously, shaking his head. “Seriously, does anyone know the symptoms of mass hallucinations, because I think this might be one of them?”

“But you talked to him about office supplies,” Gert says dumbly, but then his face lights up, as if he’s had an epiphany. “Maybe I’ll finally be able to chat up Rosemarie from Financial Management!”

“Wait!” Lowie calls to him, but Gert has already disappeared in the direction of the stairs, so he just waves his hand dismissively. “He still has no chance with her.”

Tom just blinks, still unable to process what just happened. Lowie casts him a concerned look and takes a step back.

“And here comes the _I-want-a-celebratory-hug_ face and my cue to leave. If you are able to say anything coherent tomorrow morning, I’ll be making fun of Gert for trying to pull the same shit as you and failing miserably from about 10 am, so feel free to stop by.”

Before Tom can say anything in response, Lowie’s also gone. He shakes his head and laughs, the sound bouncing off the walls of the empty corridor.

The upcoming five hours of paperwork aside, his life has just suddenly become un-ruined.


End file.
